==============================Following is a list of tools that most men are familiar with especially those of us that grew up as "hot rodders", "bikers" and "do-it-your-selfer". This list is especially useful if you’re a beginner mechanic.

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beverage across the room, splattering it against that freshly painted body part you were drying.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ouch...."

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub you want the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2 socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off a hydraulic jack handle.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.

PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.

SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog**** off your boot.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known drill bit that snaps off in bolt holes you couldn't use anyway.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the tensile strength on everything you forgot to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large pry bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The home mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, it's main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last over tightened 50 years ago by someone at Ford, and neatly rounds off theirheads.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts.

THREAD LOCK: Used to quickly and firmly lock a bolt in place just before you realize you have to take it back off because you forgot to put something else on.

Un-Hunh!And So Jerry,How many of these same tools did you use the last time you broke down?

I can add a new one too:

Pressure washer. Normally used to clean engines, chassis and the meat off of the bones in your hands. Alternate use is to get water down into the clutch/pressure plate housing of a Spicer 4171A where you don't notice it. Then a month later you need to move the bus in question and find the clutch frozen to the flywheel and pressure plate.Don't ask.

Jerry- I don't know if I should have laughed or cried. When doing my conversion one of the things that kept me going and from going completely crazy, was Murphy's law. Everytime something went wrong, the hand tool cords got tangled (started my conversion 10 years ago and completed in 2000. Actually still don't have cordless), had to redue that step, something broke, had to make the 11th trip to Home Depot-that day, missing that special tool to reach that out of the way spot, saying to myself "Murphy's law" kept the frustration level way down.

If I may make a suggestion to newbie's. Converting a bus is a dawnting project-probably worse than building a house because of the custom building nature of converting compared to the generic building techniques for home building. First make a plan of attack as to the logical procession of job to job (like playing chess). The idea is that you don't have to tear out what you just did because you forgot a step. Also-this is what really saved me-don't look at the project on a whole. In the morning when you start working on the bus, decide what job you're going to do today. Start only that job, work only on that job until done. Then move onto the next. Pretty soon, you'll see all those small individual jobs turning into the big completed motorhome you want. If you look at all the jobs you have to do on the bus at one time, you'll just go into overload and get nothing done. Most of all-have fun with it. This is my hobby, and I love working on my bus (my wife does to since I come home more relaxed afterward-it's my theorpy). Good Luck, TomC

<snip>Jerry- I don't know if I should have laughed or cried. When doing my conversion one of the things that kept me going and from going completely crazy, was Murphy's law. Everytime something went wrong, the hand tool cords got tangled (started my conversion 10 years ago and completed in 2000. Actually still don't have cordless), had to redue that step, something broke, had to make the 11th trip to Home Depot-that day, missing that special tool to reach that out of the way spot, saying to myself "Murphy's law" kept the frustration level way down.